Jean Damascene Nkurunziza, the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) Director of Operations has been sentenced to a one year imprisonment by Gasabo Higher Instance Court on charges of bribery.

Nkurunziza is charged with bribing a Gacaca court president in Kigali on October 7, 2007.

He was caught red-handed at Le Printemps Bar in Kimironko bribing Antoine Mupende, the president of Nyarugunga Sector Court of Appeal with Frw60,000.

Judge Adolphe Udahemuka of Gasabo Higher Instance Court asked Nkurunziza on Friday to pay Frw600,000 and added that, "According to articles 82, 83 and 84 of the law, a defendant who pleads guilty on cases of corruption is supposed to be sentenced to 5 years or twenty imprisonment but can have the punishment lightened to pay ten times the money he or she was using to bribe.”

The Frw600,000 was a down payment for the Frw200,000 bribe, which the BNR official had promised Mupende in the event that the latter secured the release of the former’s brother, one Vianney Mugiraneza, who is accused of having participated in the 1994 Genocide.

The crime of bribery is punished by law number 23/2003 of 07/08/2003, which stops, fights and punishes corruption and related crimes.

Earlier on Gasabo Court had been requested that Nkurunziza gets jailed for six years.

However, Nkurunziza’s Lawyer Athanase Rutabingwa asked Court to lighten the punishment since the defendant pleaded guilty.

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